Peak experience - 5 best days ever skiing the Chugach

What a week.  The distance from our apartment with a (limited) view of the Washington Monument and the Potomac to Cordova, Alaska is large.  Like 4,000 miles large.  Often in Alaska, I feel like I am farther away from DC than if I was in Europe or South America. The travel time for this trip was long, and oh so worth it. 

How did I get here?  Thankfully, I passed my Amharic language test a week before, and hence was able to make this dream trip.  Learning Amharic was very hard for me, and I was far from certain that I would pass my speaking and reading test until the very end.  When I got my passing score after an excruciating long weekend, I had a huge amount of relief...and... Alaska here I come.

 

So, first how was the skiing?  Well, it was amazing, sublime, scary, deep, steep, perfect, intense, the best I have ever skied, perfect (again).  

We mostly skied steep north facing slopes, so it was late season ‘powder’, even though it had been quite some time since snow fell in the Chugach.  Due to the topography and slope aspect, various slopes are able to hold the snow really well, and since we were the first people to ski them, it was like the snow fell the night before.  This snow is floaty and feathery.  Some other runs, those that were in the sun and lower angle, skied like the very best runs of the Sierras in the spring, super fun.

Almost all the skiing came down to skiing out on glaciers.  And you can ski a lot--one day when we had a semi private helicopter, we skied about a mile of vertical in an hour.  That hour, we skied  a line famous from its feature in videos that I have salivated over.  It was a single LONG pitch from top to bottom down to the glacier, and then it was right back up to the other side of the massive valley and a classic spring line down to the glacier.  All in an hour. 

That hour was just one of many extraordinary hours.  Another supreme experience was a run called Four Henchmen on Gambler's Ridge.  From what I heard in the lodge, only a handful of people have ever skied this run before.  I think of it as the supreme run from my trip.  It starts by skiing off a very steep face that you have to ski precisely across 4 famous/classic Alaska spines.  

I made my way down the spines, skiing left to right to let the slough (snow that could become an avalanche) flow down fall line.  I was skiing fast but very much in control. Then there was a rock chute with a 10 foot pinch point that requires side stepping.  Time stood still as I negotiated this very carefully.  Once out, I was on to a larger steep face with soft deep snow. Little do I know that at the bottom of this beautiful face is a HUGE piece of hanging ice -- called a "serac".  It is a 100 or 200 or 300 hundred foot serac (how big is unclear since we never see it’s bottom).

We didn't know that we were above this serac until we finished the epic run, however, we were skiing from safe zone to safe zone.  So we cut right to the safe zone and made a number of turns over some more lower angle spines, lower angle but with the ice closer to the surface. Then it is across 3 bergschrunds--diagonal slots of the glacier where it separates and tears at the solidity of the mountains.  The bergschrunds can go down hundreds of feet so you can't go horizontal and you can't fall.

That was the first pitch of Four Henchmen on Gambler's ridge. The second pitch had dream snow-- we skied between a foot or two deep in a large chute.  The chute had a 8 foot mandatory ice cliff at the bottom with a cave that falls deep into the nothingness if you mess it up.  I don’t mess it up but I also didn’t stick the landing either--no big deal.  Then it is more good skiing down through the scariest ice field I have ever traversed.  We stopped once and then precisely followed the guide's tracks because of various ice zones yawning open, with the right especially pronounced via an ice cave that is probably 100 feet in diameter.  Wow.  When we get to the heli pick up zone there is intense and immense relief, but we also must move fast to get out of this very dangerous location in the mountains.  But I am also so happy.  So so happy.  I met this moment, this test with calmness and clearness and energy and focus.  The high and intensity of this run will stay with me long after it is over, will stay with all of us long after it is over.  I can picture each turn of this run with clarity and fondness. 

How did I get here?  Well, a really good buddy of mine came to Points North Heli-Adventures a few years ago.  And a mutual friend of some buddies is a guide, but really I am coming from left field.  A last minute addition, from a flat part of the country.  In the week I was there, people came from all over the US and Europe.  I thought it was kind of interesting to have so many people, like me, coming from big urban cities, not from ski towns, but with a deep passion for skiing.  This part of our lives are all somewhat anomalies in those cities and here we are coming together and with an amazing energy to be in the epicenter of a sport we all love and feel part of our identity.  Most people coming to this kind of trip to heli ski in Alaska booked months ago and have 30-50 ski days for the season.  I don’t have those reps this year, but life has worked out to allow me to be able to come to fulfill this life time dream.

How did I get here? It is a funny thing about the ski community once you get to Alaska.  Everyone has been pining for this experience for years and years.  My estimate is that the median time people have been dreaming of this experience is 20 years.  A long time.  The energy as a result of this dynamic is this interesting blend of stoke and apprehension, will each of us be able to meet the years of expectations we have created about this trip?  After the fact, I can confess that I was not sure if I would be able to meet this moment, would I be up to the task? 

Thankfully, I was. PNH is an elite operation, the top of the top in the heli skiing community in Alaska, which means the top of the mountain globally.  The best ski lines in the world. Literally. Most of the lines we skied have names like Bubbies, Oz, Shoulda Woulda Coulda, Basket Case, Four Horsemen, Oh Canada, Roman Numerals (x5), Wizard Sex, Targetto, etc.  If you love ski videos like me, you have seen most of them already.  Being on top of these famous runs, and skiing them with style, was validating. 

I am so lucky to have been placed in a pod with 3 great skiers and a superlative guide who also wanted to ski steep, steep Alaskan lines.  One thing that was a pleasant surprise about the heli skiing experience is how collaborative it proved to be.  We only go where everyone can go, and we are incredibly connected in terms of safety and goals.  We are a team.  I have always loved being part of a team for as long as can I remember, and so this part of the Alaskan ski experience is a fun surprise.

Our fearless leader?  Paul is a superb guide, super calm, strong and fun in the mountains.  On the first day, Paul gives us a thorough refresh on our avi training and the heli, and then we are off.  I think we will have a mellow “show me” run, but nope.  My first run is down a steep little chute with great snow.  North facing and a taste of the 35 runs that are to come.

Every time we get in the heli, I am amazed at the stillness and quiet once inside the cone of the heli’s rotors.  There is a biting wind and these little snow pellets pound your face on the outside of the rotor wash, but inside it is quiet, for example you can talk easily in the copter.  It is also remarkable how quickly I get used to riding in a helicopter, the routine of something i had never done a week ago. 

One highlight of day 3 is a natural amphitheater off the Cordova glacier (see above).  Snow that fell 10 or more millenniums is exposed with crazy colors and patterns.  So peaceful and awe inspiring. It is also very cool to be under the glacier crown, when so much of our energy and attention has been directed upwards to the peaks, and steep lines and powder.  Super special.  After an hour, the heli lands under the glacier to pick us up, combing this wonder of modernity and human ingenuity with the timelessness of this place.  Two poles contrasting in seemingly perfect union in this one moment of time. Wow.

On a related point, it is a weird feeling to be having some of the best days of my life (peak experience for sure) while separated from my family, from the two people I love the most in this world.  From the two people who I will love the most in this world until I die.  There is discordance in having this peak experience while separate from them.  I want to share it with them somehow, but it feels impossible to fully share what I have been doing, seeking, experiencing, testing, these last 5 days. 

By the 5th day, and out on the slopes, I had to say I was tapped out.  Empty.  It was hard, as this meant the other guys wouldn’t get to ski more sick, sick Alaska ski lines.  The kind of lines we came here to ski. You have to be 100% present to ski those runs, and I was unable to marshall that focus anymore.  I was thinking of two things far from the Chugach, my family and my body.  With regard to my family, I had thrived on so many of the hardest, steepest lines I could ever imagine and now there were just a few left.  So close to safety, and getting back to my family whole, alive.  But these thoughts don’t help you ski better; in fact they make me ski worse. On the body, I started skiing defensively, instead of offensively.  Mostly to safeguard my problematic knees.  This is another no go, instead of doing what is right, true and dictated by the mountain, if you try to impose your will on this type of skiing, on this type of mountains, you will lose. You will get hurt.  Not today though, back safe and proud and empty.

This week has been amazing.  Ultimately, before this trip I was not sure if I was up for the challenge of the HUGE Mountains and ski lines of Alaska.  These ski lines were actually bigger and harder and better than I anticipated, and I was able to ski them.  We were able to ski them.